The Other Dome

Deirdre Carney

Hardly an outfit to see in the New Year, century, or millennium but it would have to do. Most of our stuff was still in cases after three days on Scoraig and we were still regaining our strength after the epic move from Eriskay. So, a maroon jumper with only warmth to recommend it and a pair of black jeans it was.

I had hung up the day before and told Peter "They're having a Millennium party. But he didn't actually say we're invited." Our neighbour's daughter laughed. "On Scoraig when there's a party everyone's invited."

We had spent most of the day trying to keep the Rayburn alight, but the blaze was a poor thing and had made no impression on the temperature in the house. Funny how I don't mind the cold as long as it's outdoors. We were a jolly group walking along the track, picking up party-goers as we went. When we arrived, blinking in the light, we could attach faces to the voices we had been talking to for the past three-quarters of an hour.

I have a mental picture of the likes of Tony Blair, John Prescott and Peter Mandelson jigging for the cameras in the Millennium Dome in London as the bells rang out. I was in another dome at the far end of the country. No suits here, but lots of hand-knits and Scoraig Super Socks (indestructible, I later found out). And the venue - not a huge embarrassment but a beautiful family home built over the years by our host.

On the stroke of midnight, I was standing with two other women, both mothers of children I would begin teaching in a few days. We were talking by the light of the candles someone had given us all. The taller woman was telling us that her medical emergency a while earlier had turned out to be a twisted ovary agony!

We drank from glasses and jam jars and the kissing began. I gave up trying to remember the names of my new neighbours as we kissed and hugged each other. People all over our time zone must have shared their thoughts and wishes like us now. The momentous day had finally arrived.

We stripped the willow in the giant tent fixed up to the side of the house. We watched my Primary 6 pupil-to-be play the accordion. The Millennium Talent Contest showcased fiddlers, guitarists, whistlers, singers and dancers. The result was announced to loud shouts of "Fix!" A figure in yellow oilskins top and bottom came in with a case of shell fish from his catch.

At three o'clock I thought about the long walk home and tried to assemble the family. Sean and Ellen had been befriended by their new schoolmates and would stay the night.

In the porch, a mountain of wellies, the de rigueur footwear in this place of rain and mud, held us up another twenty minutes. I was the only DC on Scoraig and had written my initials on the outside of each wellie in marker but they had become separated. So had Peter's. A much cleverer idea was to thread brightly-coloured tassels through them as I saw some old hands had.

The feeble beams of our head lamps bounced ahead of us along the track as Peter and I went home. Even after Eriskay, the peninsula was a strikingly silent place, only the whir of windmills and our footsteps to be heard in the darkness. The moon shone on the loch people would swim in later that day.

Our house at the top of the hill was gelid by now. Peter and I took the bottle of whiskey up the ladder to our bedroom and attempted to knock ourselves out. A couple of inches of Jack Daniels between us was nowhere near equal to the task and I woke with a shudder several times during the night.

Over time, I learnt the names of the people I had met at that lovely party. The name of the man who left three bags of coal outside my house in the middle of the night because he knew I'd run out. The name of the woman who came up the hill later that day and showed us how to get the best out of our Rayburn. She'd overheard me moaning that I'd never get the hang of it. The house got warmer. I learnt the name of the man who'd ferried me across the loch against his better judgment when I had got the terrible news about my father. The names of the marvellous school board and brilliant children I'd teach. And all the people I fed and who fed me as we sat round kitchen tables and talked long into the dark Scoraig nights.

It seems to be impossible to read or hear about Soraig without the word "remote" coming up very early on. No road, that loch, no mains electricity or water, no shop or pub. Well, OK, those are the facts. But plenty of people don't know who lives upstairs from them. My brother laughed at me when I visited him in Birmingham and said hello to the bus driver before I asked for my fare. So I always wince a bit at that word. For me, Scoraig is the least remote place I've ever known.